The exchange occurred on Oct. 16, 2015, well before Strzok was tapped to lead the investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential campaign. But it sheds some light on the FISA process, which is at the center of a partisan debate because of the FBI and Justice Department’s use of the unverified Steele dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

In the text, which was sent to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Strzok appears to be criticizing another government official who he claimed bungled an investigation.

The official, whose name is redacted, reopened an investigation, which lead to a discussion within the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence about whether “material misrepresentations” were made in a FISA application.

According to Fox News’ Ed Henry, the memo suggests Steele misrepresented his findings to the FBI.

“The Grassley memo tonight now goes on to say that in fact the FBI then went back after learning that Christopher Steele misrepresented things and did talk to the media–the FBI never disclosed that to the FISA court and kept going back for renewals of the surveillance warrant and didn’t say to the court look things have changed, we no longer think he’s reliable–he lied to us and spoke to the media,” reported Henry.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s criminal referral of Steele states the former British intelligence agent misled the bureau about his connections to Yahoo News and Mother Jones, despite initially claiming he had no contact with the media.